


Hair of the Dog

by ijemanja



Category: Private Practice
Genre: Drunk Sex, F/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-21
Updated: 2007-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1860186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijemanja/pseuds/ijemanja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet and Cooper and a Very Bad Idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair of the Dog

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after only the smushed-with-a-Grey's-episode pilot had aired, so a few months before Private Practice was even a show.

What Violet remembers when she wakes up is that she didn't come. She didn't come, and actually, she's pretty sure she passed out before _he_ came. She can't remember whether they used a condom.

These three facts, together, officially make last night one of the worst sexual experiences of her life. Right up there with her first time, when her boyfriend Jimmy rolled off her and onto a bottle cap, and they ended up in the emergency room while he got five stitches in his ass and she had to call her mother to come and pick her up.

But add to that the fact that the man lying unconscious next to her is Cooper - that edges out the competition fairly definitively.

"Good morning," he says when he finally wakes up. He turns onto his side, actually looks at her, and does the sort of double take that would be a lot funnier if she wasn't this hung over. "Violet?"

"Cooper." Her arms are folded over her chest, the sheet secure under her armpits and she looks resolutely at the ceiling, blaming him for everything.

"Uh."

"I don't remember if we used a condom. I'm not on the pill and we better have used a condom because if you get me pregnant or give me chlamydia or something Cooper I swear to god -"

"We did! We totally did! Hey, see? It's right there." He's pointing over the side of the bed and she doesn't look. Ew. "So," he says, settling back down beside her, "Was it good for you?"

He grins as if this is in any way charming.

"It was the worst sex of my entire life."

He stares at her. "Seriously?" He runs his hand over his face and then shrugs. "Well, you gotta give me another chance."

"What? Come on." She turns her back on him, annoyed.

"No, I know, I'll admit I'm not at my best after seven shots of Jack Daniels, though I'd like to point out that few men would be. I need another go." He pokes her shoulder. Repeatedly. "Please? Violet? Please?"

She swats his hand away. "Oh, for god's sake, Cooper -"

And then he jumps on her and she's laughing and trying to shove him off, because it's _Cooper_.

Then again, it's Cooper, and when his hand is between her legs and his morning stubble is dragging along her chest he's apparently a lot harder to resist than usual.

Who knew?

A lot later she's wearing one of his t-shirts and eating scrambled eggs. It's the only thing he knows how to cook, but, she reasons, at least he does it well.

"Told ya," he says, grinning at her from where he's sprawled across the foot of the bed.

She assumes he's referring to the fact that, this time, he made her come twice.

It's not that she doesn't appreciate it - it's been a while, a long while, since she had sex. Not so appreciated is the fact that he knows this, and felt the need to point out and identify his various body parts in case she'd forgotten what they were. And then, whilst down between her knees, express his surprise that 'it' hadn't grown over.

Without the scrambled eggs and the orgasms she'd really be hating Cooper quite a lot right now. As it is, he just gives her another grin and heads for the bathroom and she watches him go, chewing slowly and not really hating him at all.

When he comes back he flops back down, a little closer this time, cheerfully informing her that he brushed his teeth, and showered, and shaved.

"Totally cool if you borrow my toothbrush," he says. Then he runs his hand fondly up her leg and adds, "Razor too. Seriously Vi, one guy was a jerk, you shouldn't just give up."

She punches him. In the arm, but still pretty hard. He falls over onto his back, clutching his arm and laughing at her as she crosses the room. "Really, it didn't bother me," he calls after her. "I just pretended you were a lesbian."

She leans back against the bathroom door after not quite slamming it shut.

The weird thing is not that Cooper is insensitive and kind of an idiot - she was already well aware of that. No, it's the fact that she's been in bed with a man for hours, with unshaved legs and really bad morning breath and - she looks in the mirror - the worst case of bed-head imaginable.

She used to be hyper-aware of things like that, all the little imperfections people, _men_ , might see. Even when she was with Alan for so long, she never would have let him see her with inch-long leg stubble.

This morning she didn't even think about it.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" she wonders aloud.

"No really," she says Monday, when she has successfully pinned down Naomi and Addison in the break room. "I trust both of you to tell me the truth. Is there something wrong with me?"

"You apparently think it would kill you to change the coffee filter for once in your life. But that's not just you," Naomi says reassuringly from where she stands at the coffee machine. "That's everyone. Slobs."

"Anal retentive kitchen nazi," Addison contributes, half-buried in the fridge.

Violet hovers in the middle of the room and the exact level of panic she's experiencing must be radiating off of her or something because Naomi suddenly turns. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm so fine, I slept with Cooper. I _slept_ with _Cooper_."

"We know," Addison and Naomi inform her in stereo.

Addison, having emerged from the refrigerator, winces in sympathy. "He sort of -"

"Told everyone," Naomi finishes, and hands her a cup of coffee.

Violet accepts the coffee and nods. Of course he did. "So, we're agreed then. There's something deeply wrong with me. Plus I'm the worst therapist ever. I mean, you'd think I'd be able to spot this level of dysfunction from a mile away. Even in myself."

"You just had sex, you didn't get married."

"People get drunk and throw themselves at other people all the time. It happens."

"Oh my god, I didn't throw myself at him - is that what he's saying?"

Naomi and Addison exchange a look.

"What?"

"Well," Naomi starts, then stops. Addison elbows her and she starts again. "Sometimes it can seem like..." She stops again and this is the part where Violet would scream if she was that kind of person. She's not, so she just waits, and finally Naomi spits it out. "It can seem as if you're really into him."

She stares at the cup in her hand. She hasn't had any, so she lifts it to her mouth to take a sip. It's hot, so she blows on it and thinks about how strange it is that anyone would say that. "I'm not," she says.

Naomi looks at her earnestly. "Honey."

That's all she says, but it's really more than enough.

In her office, where she goes, officially, to work, but in reality to hide, she decides she'll be better off never seeing or speaking to another human being, ever again. She'll become a hermit and only venture out at two AM to raid empty grocery stores where she'll never have to run into married ex-boyfriends or former best friends who make breakfast in bed and are surprisingly good at giving head.

For the moment, however, he's technically still her current, rather than former, best friend. Who is all of a sudden standing in her doorway.

He stands there and she's never hated anyone, doesn't even hate Alan who, if he deserves anything, it's to be hated. But she hates Cooper. And the other morning, when she was sitting in his bed and deciding she really didn't hate him? Merely the result of a hangover-fuelled sexual haze.

She's thinking a lot more clearly, now. Really.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she replies.

"Is this going to be weird now because we've seen each other naked?"

"No," she says. "Not at all."

"Good." He comes further into the room, comes right up, in fact, and perches on the desk beside her chair, facing her. "I was thinking," he says, "Before. About how it was actually kind of nice, spending the night with someone and not having to worry about them stealing my car."

"Yeah, you know my last name and everything."

"I know how old you really are, too. You know how old _I_ am." He says all this casually, as if simply musing aloud. "So you were right."

"Of course I was _right_. I was right about this being a terrible idea, too. And hey, you're sitting on - stuff that I need. Move. I have chairs, you know."

He lifts up just long enough for her to save a stack of folders and then settles back down again. "See, this is better. It just doesn't feel right if you're not scolding me."

She crosses her arms and then uncrosses them. She looks up at him and looks away. She squirms in her seat and he just sits there calmly and finally, grudgingly, she says, "I always swore I would never sleep with you no matter what."

"You _swore_?" he says, looking hurt. She rolls her eyes at him and he scratches at the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, okay."

"I am freaking out here," she tells him seriously.

"I noticed. You're very highly strung. You know what you need?" He grins at her. _That_ grin.

She snorts. "Shut up."

"No, really." He leans right over so his head is close to hers. "I've given it a lot of thought and I think we should have sex again."

She really, really just hates him so much.

"Okay," she says, reaching for her purse.

And that's how she ends up sitting on her couch a few hours later, naked, eating cold pizza.

"Your place is lame, Violet," Cooper says, his mouth full. "You have diet coke and V8, five _thousand_ kinds of tea, and no beer?"

"I'm not twenty-five."

He slings an arm over her shoulders. "I know. And I forgive you."

She leans into him a little, takes a bite of pizza and talks around it. It's gross but he can't see it. She wouldn't care if he could. "This was easier when we were drunk, wasn't it."

He doesn't answer and she pulls back to look at him, still chewing. He smiles down at her. "You have pretty hair," he says.

Which is Cooper-speak for 'I'm way too afraid of you to tell you what I really think'.

She turns back around, rests her head on his shoulder. It'll do.


End file.
